It was a sight which has become all too familiar this season. Lewis Hamilton,
looking imperious and with victory seemingly within his grasp, pulling over
to the side of the road, hauling himself out of his cockpit and trudging
back to the pits.

Crashing out: Lewis Hamilton is left to rue another failurePhoto: GETTY IMAGES

Hamilton has now failed to reach the finish line five times in 2012 and not one of those retirements has been his fault.

When you take into account the numerous pit-lane errors by McLaren that cost him in the early part of the season, the fuelling issue which caused Hamilton to be relegated from pole to the back of the grid in Barcelona, and the many technical gremlins which have hampered his progress in recent weeks, it is tempting to conclude that the 27 year-old could be leading this championship rather than lying in fifth place.

Yesterday it was a fuel pickup problem which caused Hamilton’s McLaren to shudder to a halt 20 laps into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. He had been the quickest driver all weekend. To his credit, Hamilton put a brave face on his disappointment.

“We’ve had a lot of failures in the last five races, so reliability has been a big issue for us, but I’ve no doubts the team can fix them,” he said.

“The last four or five races we’ve had something fail on the car, even when we’ve managed to finish the race. Hopefully luck will swing our way in the last two races.

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“You keep your head up, you keep going. The guys back at the factory shouldn’t be disheartened. We all need to work harder.

“Congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen, he really drove a fantastic race. I knew at some stage Lotus would win a race this year.” Hamilton, however, could not hide his disappointment over his own fate. “I’m gutted,” he added.

“I’d had really good pace all weekend and I feel certain we could have won today. I had a fuel-pressure problem – it was very sudden, I was just entering a corner and the car just died on me.

“The only mistake I made all weekend was having a brief moment on lap two, when my brakes weren’t fully up to temperature and I locked up into Turn Eight. After that, however, everything was going really well.

“The car was a dream to drive – I was cruising and still pulling away when I had my problem. Nonetheless, we’ll have more opportunities in Austin and Sao Paulo. I hope we can get back to the front – I’d love to take a win or two more with McLaren before the end of the season.”

He may need to take advantage while he can. Mercedes have not managed to score one point in the five races since Hamilton announced his intention to quit his boyhood team and move to Brackley.

Raikkonen won the race after taking over from Hamilton, following the Englishman’s mishap, but it was Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel who held on to his championship lead after a gutsy display saw him finish third behind Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner hailed Vettel’s mental strength after one of the German’s career-best performances to go from pit-lane to third.

“We know how consistent Fernando has been this year, so it was entirely predictable that starting from sixth on the grid he was going to be on the podium,” said Horner.

“I mentally had an image of him taking 15 or 25 points out of us, so for Sebastian to limit the damage to only three and finish behind him shows what a great drive it was. He showed he is world class. It was one of the best drives of his career.

"He really went for it, and to go from the pit-lane to the podium is phenomenal.”